An unofficial Croydon, Sutton and Surrey Green Party blog by Shasha Khan. Having lived in Croydon most of my life, I now live just outside the south west of the borough in Woodmansterne.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

New letter sent to local papers

Reeves family photographed in front of their smouldering furniture shop

As we all know, Croydon too was attacked by rioters, just hours after I posted. The following morning a new letter (below) was sent to the local papers. Green Party Mayoral candidate Jenny Jones has issued an excellently worded press statement on the riots.

9th August 2011

Dear Editor,

We are all feeling sadness, anger and disbelief of what has happened. Once the dust has settled, and order has been restored there needs to be some careful analysis of why this happened. The reasons for the riots are deep rooted and multifaceted. People aren’t born looters, thugs or muggers. Something has gone dreadfully wrong.

What is quite stark to me is if these rioters feel they haven’t got a future, then they would also feel they haven’t got anything to lose. This leads one to conclude the problem is inequality. Unequal countries like USA and the UK experience this type of social destruction, whereas countries where the gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ is not so wide do not.

One can argue that rising youth unemployment and the ever-increasing cost of further education and the closure of youth clubs do not help the situation.